Feeling the borax burn

A favourite for DIY recipes for laundry detergent and bug killer, Health Canada is now warning of overexposure to borax.

A draft risk assessment released by Health Canada has found that boric acid and its salts (aka sodium borate or borax) “has the potential to cause developmental and reproductive health effects” and “may be considered harmful to human health at current levels of exposure.”

The European Union warned about borax's effects on reproductive functions at high exposure levels a few years back, but said levels used in consumer goods like cleaners are safe. Then the EU put boric acid on the list of potential hormone disruptors.

As the issue was slated for further research across the pond, Health Canada surprised everyone by issuing a clear caution against “overexposure" late last month.

HC isn’t warning against natural exposures. Canadians are already ingesting boric acid in fruits and veggies and drinking water. But the agency says, “Exposure from other sources should be reduced as much as possible, especially for children and pregnant women.”

Problem is, boric acid and its related compounds are found in a ton of pesticides, cleaning products, body care products and hundreds of drugs and natural health products. It’s also used as a natural flame retardant in fibreglass and cellulose insulation as well as textiles and futon mattresses, which helps explain its presence in household dust.

David Suzuki Foundation’s Queen of Green, Lindsay Coulter, who has followed the borax controversy since the EU’s warning, says it’s “refreshing” that Health Canada has taken the lead on these warnings, but many of her online followers aren’t as supportive.

Coulter attributes that sentiment to “a distrust in Health Canada. There are lots of other chemicals they wish Health Canada would review and tell people to stop using in conventional products. Some of my audience still feels like relative to exposures in conventional cleaners, maybe the borax isn’t as bad.”

One compared the move to the feds’ decision to pull citronella off shelves and wage war against natural health products. Another warned against being a “sheep following government and big pharma.”

No doubt, boric acid and borax don’t have the same agro-chemical interests lobbying to keep them on shelves as aggressively as, say, neonicotinoids. Last month, Ecojustice launched a lawsuit on behalf of four eco orgs arguing that Health Canada’s Pesticide Management Regulatory Agency has taken "a see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil approach by repeatedly registering these neonicotinoid pesticides without important scientific information on their risks to pollinators.” Now Health Canada is reminding Canadians to “never make homemade pesticides,” including those with boric acid. With pesticides like neonics still on the market, targeting borax can feel like the feds are going after low-hanging fruit.